Thursday, November 27, 2014

BADLANDS

Well, I'm glad I finally got that out of my system.

Until a few nights ago, I'd never seen a Terence Malick film. The mercurial (and sometimes Austin resident) filmmaker has a reputation for making beautifully shot, incredibly cerebral films. He also rivals the legendary Stanley Kubrick for producing a small body of work over an extremely long period of time. Consider his filmography: BADLANDS (1973), DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978), THE THIN RED LINE (1998), THE NEW WORLD (2005), THE TREE OF LIFE (2011), TO THE WONDER (2012) and KNIGHT OF CUPS (2014). That's seven films over a forty year span.

I finally watched my first (and most likely, last) Terence Malick film the other night. BADLANDS ran on TCM and I recorded it and watched it. I'm not certain of this, but I'm willing to bet good money that some 1973 film reviewer used the words "lyrical, poetic" in his or her review of BADLANDS. "Lyrical, poetic" in a film review are code words for "has no plot". BADLANDS has a plot (sorta). It's a beautifully shot film (three cinematographers worked on the film: Tak Fujimoto, Stevan Larner and Brian Probyn), well acted (the young Martin Sheen and even younger Sissy Spacek are both very good), glacially paced film about two young lovers/killers on the run in the 1950s.

Except that there's no dramatic tension, no sense of urgency, no blackly comic buzz to the whole affair. BADLANDS goes nowhere and takes it own sweet time in getting there. You want a good young lovers/killers on the run film? Check out THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948), GUN CRAZY (1950), BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) or THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974), any one of which is infinitely better than BADLANDS.

Based on the true story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, Martin Sheen channels his inner James Dean into his portrayal of Kit, an insane young man who kills several people throughout the course of the film, all for no apparent reason. Kit is no thief who kills in the commission of his crimes. He's a thrill killer without the thrill. Spacek is Holly, a borderline retarded young woman who accompanies Kit on his cross country spree after he shoots her father (the great Warren Oates, who is sadly under used here). The two live a fairy tale existence for awhile, setting up a tree house in the woods where they become a Swiss Family Robinson style little family. But the law soon stumbles upon them, Kit shoots and kills the police officers and they're on the run again. They're eventually captured. Kit is executed, Holly receives probation.

As I said, the film is gorgeous to look at and well acted but that's about the only nice things I can say about BADLANDS. It's a pretentious art film and I hate pretentious art films. I don't think I'll bother to see any other Malick films. I'll add him to my list of filmmakers to avoid along with David Lynch and Quentin Tarrantino. Thumbs down.